Xanathar’s Guide to Everything – Preview

During the Stream of Annilhilation event this weekend in Seattle, Wizards of the Coast announced Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a new sourcebook which will be out in stores this fall. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything offers a wealth of new rules options for both players and DMs. I think it is safe to assume that we’ll see content related to all the recent Unearthed Arcana articles and feedback surveys from the D&D team.

Some details about this new product…The following info has been gathered from the official product page and a tweet by Jeremy Crawford of the D&D team.

Coming November 21, 2017 and it will cost US$49.95 (C$65.95)

Pre-Release to FLAGS November 10, 2017

Format: Hardcover

25 new subclasses (each class gets 2 except the wizard which gets 1)

host of new spells

new rules on magic items, downtime, traps and more

Mike Mearls: “Tools and toys for Dungeon Masters to expand their game.”

Assembled here for the first time is new information on adventurers of every stripe. In addition, you’ll find and valuable advice for those of nefarious intent who must deal with such meddling do-gooders, including the Xanathar’s personal thoughts on how to dispatch anyone foolish enough to interfere with his business dealings. Alongside observations on “heroes” themselves, the beholder fills the pages of this tome with his personal thoughts on tricks, traps, and even treasures and how they can be put to villainous use.

Complete rules for more than twenty new subclasses for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, including the cavalier, the inquisitive, the horizon walker, and many more.

Dozens of new feats and spells, and a system to give your character a unique, randomized backstory.

A variety of systems and tools that provide Dungeon Masters new ways to personalize their home games, while also expanding the ways players can engage in organized play and shared world campaigns.

Hobby Store Exclusive

The decision to provide a limited edition cover to game stores is a really great way to push people towards their FLGS (Friendly Neighborhood Gaming Store) and away from Amazon, which is good for D&D’s organized play (Adventurers League) and the overall hobby.

Shawn is an author and co-founder of Tribality.com. He first got into tabletop RPGs through ninjas and then by playing a Kender in Dragonlance. Years later, he can be found running games in the Nentir Vale and his own Seas of Vodari campaign setting.

I think it’s interesting that the archetypes they’ve shown are the cavalier, inquisitive and horizon walker. Those are three archetypes that are extremely different. The cavalier is for mounted combat, which is pretty uncommon in D&D to say the least, the inquisitive is almost completely focused on the social pillar while the horizon walker is a very flashy, magical, almost reminiscent of 4E archetype.

While they’re not particularly interesting to me, they paint a very interesting picture of the book.

Shawn E.

5e has been out for a bit. They’ve done a good job avoiding too much splat… but this book… it’s looking like a cross between PHB2 and DMG2. Will be interesting.

Right, but they’re not focusing on the iconic villains of Forgotten Realms nearly as much as one would expect. In part they’re painted into a weird corner, because the Spellplague and its 100-year time-lapse are canon they’re just… stuck with. But that means that they can either bring back everyone from the 1360s DR – Fzoul, Manshoon, &c.; they can write new villains and try to build them up to iconic status; or they can bring in iconic but non-FR villains, like Acererak.

I like that Dead in Thay works with Szass Tam and the other zulkirs. I like that the Cult of the Dragon headlines HotDQ and RoT, even if there aren’t a lot of pre-existing named cult leaders for them to play with. OotA, similarly. So it isn’t that they don’t play within their established sandbox, it’s… I dunno, it’s really hard to get someone from unlisted to iconic in a single book, and they need to reveal something about the big bads in order to market the adventures in a lot of cases. (SKT is a clear exception here.)

Manos Ti

Although Mearls has repeatedly stated that they are “looking to other settings much more than people think”, I definitely agree here, the overall investment to FR seems so large that I’d be surprised now to see another setting in 5e.

But then again, this might make a shift to Planescape much more probable than other official settings of previous editions, as it has been seen that they want now to link their stories somehow. So, you need the setting of all settings in order to shift to something else. I don’t know, at least this is how I would do it.

Unexpected Dave

If they thought that a book in another setting would bring a huge wave of new players to the game, I’m sure they’d do it in a heartbeat. (I suppose they already did that with Curse of Stroud to a certain extent.) From their current release schedule, I can only assume that their market research doesn’t find enough positive brand recognition for “Dragonlance” or “Eberron” outside of the core D&D audience.

I wonder, though, now that Planescape: Torment has been gradually establishing itself as a cult classic videogame, if the Planescape setting might soon achieve that kind of non-core brand recognition that would make Wizards eager to publish a D&D 5e supplement for it.

Manos Ti

Well, it might. And thinking of the “collective experience” they want to have with their storylines (all official products/releases of WotC are more or less aligned with the current storyline) the relaunch of Torment might lead us to think that a Planescape storyline could be much closer than we think.

Also, according to Mearls’ statements again, it is all about what they want to incorporate to 5e. So my guess is that a new setting in 5e could be largely influenced by what extra rules/mechanics they want to induce in 5e. If they want to promote Psionics for instance, they could do a FR storyline with Mindflayers but they could move to a new setting for 5e that makes heavy use of Psionics (let’s say Dark Sun).

But ultimately, I still get the impression that all of the 5e storylines will be in FR. It is not only that FR is a traditionally diverse and rich setting, they have proven that they can incorporate whatever they want from other settings to it. With various levels of success of course.

I really think an adventure centered around Planescape could happen. With each adventure they’re showing they’re willing to go more and more high concept. Planescape would be great vehicle to introducing other planes and such an adventure could focus on some sort of setting hopping villain.

A lore book similar to the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, focused on Planescape would even better in my opinion. Chapters could highlight the top five settings accessible through Planescape. The Artificer could be included in the Eberron chapter, the Mystic in Dark Sun, etc. It would address fan’s setting concerns while discussing ways to bring content from anywhere into the Forgotten Realms easily.

Colin McLaughlin

Into the Abyss -> Out of the Abyss -> Great Modron March -> Dead Gods

Brand it as the Shadow of Orcus, start it with Blackstaff in FR. There we go, done in one 😀

Unexpected Dave

What’s interesting about the cavalier (at least the latest version) is that it’s using the same fundamental mechanics as the Battle Master, with only a few variations to support the theme. As a homebrew precendent, I really like that. It shows that you don’t have to go overboard when tinkering with subclasses to support a specific theme. But as a precedent for future official content, it’s slightly worrisome. Allowing such minor differences between official subclasses makes opens the floodgates to bloat city.

You may already be well aware of this, but there was a point in D&D Next development where all fighters used CS dice, and some other classes had their own similar mechanics. My big problem with it in the Cavalier is that the last feature that distinguishes the Cavalier from the Battle Master comes at 7th level – the rest of their progression converges with the Battle Master.

Sporelord0179

I personally think they should have kept the CS Dice as core class feature – as a lot of people seem to agree. It may have stepped on the Champion a bit as that’s supposed to be a straight “smash and grab” class but you could have simply given the Champion only one or two CS die options.

Hopefully the version in Xanathar’s guide to EVERYTHING has a bit more to distinguish it.

Wyvern

Something that just occurred to me: last year we got Volo’s Guide, next up is Xanathar’s Guide… does that mean that the next product in the pipeline is Zagyg’s Guide?

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